Spawn of Satan: A Cautionary Tale
by The Flying Breadstick
Summary: When you're dead, unbaptised, the daughter of Jack Sparrow, and have committed the grave sin of learning to bounce before you could walk, threatening to kick God's arse really isn't a good idea... [Part of How My Perfect Life Was Inverted.]
1. We Come Bearing Hot Water Bottles

**Disclaimer:** No profit is being made from the following work, much as I'd like to. Anything that you recognise very probably is someone else's, and no copyright infringement is intended; if anything they're merely complimentary references cunningly interwoven into my text and disguised with glasses and a false moustache. I own only my own warped, twisted version of the afterlife, and I won't hesitate to kill anybody who dares to copy it…

**AN:** At long last, here it is: the prologue to Pearl's time in the afterlife, and how she attempts to escape it… If you possess Christian sympathies and are rather sensitive, you may want to look away; if you possess Christian sympathies and are looking for something un-Christian to flame, you may also want to look away; if you are an Enlightened Buddhist, then what the hell are you doing with a computer anyway, and if you're an atheist, none of this would really matter to you.

**Spawn of Satan**

**Part I:** We Come Bearing Hot Water Bottles

Little Pearl was tired and dazed and very much confused, and looking all the more adorable because of it, what with her silky black hair fluttering carelessly about her shoulders and her blue eyes heavy-lidded from sleeplessness. She was uncertain of where she was, or what she was doing there, or how she came across the pinstriped (yes, _pinstriped_) hot water bottle she now clung tightly to her chest; all she knew was that there were a lot of people, many of whom were taller and older than she herself was, and that they were all clutching their own multi-coloured bottles whilst they milled about on what appeared to be a misty moor, as complete strangers inexplicably gathered upon a misty moor with no apparent reasoning or purpose tend to do. If she had been a little more alert, she would have been wondering how she had got there, and would have casually queried whether this was a sort of underground pagan sex cult she was unwittingly attending, for if it was, she would very much like to leave as soon as possible and go bouncing over to her Papa and have Si-Si coo and fawn over her, if you'll be so kind.

Mind you, it wasn't as if such behaviour towards Pearl's adorability was lacking:

"Oh, look at these little fingers!" a dark regal woman fussed, pulling and prodding at the pale slender digits. "Such small little fingernails! And such soft skin!" She, like all the other millers of the misty moor, had a water bottle, only it hung from her slender waist on a long silver chain of diamonds, the woman having had the common sense to slip the intricate metal through a slight loop at the top of the container. Pearl found herself mesmerised by the glittering diamonds, and had long ago taken to batting at the precious gems in a manner not unlike that of a newborn kitten. Had she been living, the woman would have been suspicious of the child, thinking the girl naught more than a pretty-faced thief, but now that she was dead, such material items had ceased to matter to her.

Smiling her dark, enigmatic smile, the lady bent down so that her face was at the child's level, and asked her kindly, "Do you want it, little angel?"

Pearl fluttered her thick lashes, shaking her head even as her hand reached out to clasp the chain tightly in her little fist. The lady laughed, and gently tugged the precious jewels from out of the girl's grasp the better to unhook and untangle it. "There you go," the woman said to her, winding the gems carefully about Pearl's slender neck and rearranging the girl's sinfully soft hair. "Oh my, but don't you make a pretty picture!"

Pearl lowered her head shyly and murmured a thank you, admiring the way the gems glittered and sparkled and made her feel pretty and dizzy and giddy with delight at how much prettier she must now look, whilst the lady tucked her own hot water bottle under her arm and smiled at the happy child.

"What's your name?" she purred as Pearl twirled the gems about her fingers.

The pirate's daughter stopped playing with her present to frown at this, before saying sorrowfully, "My Papa always said not to give my _real_ name to strangers…"

"Well," the woman smiled, "My name is Lady Anne; and you are…?"

"Pearl," she murmured in her most shy yet adorable voice. "No Lady, just little Pearl…"

"Little Pearl," Lady Anne repeated. "Well, Little Pearl, it's very nice to meet you." And she offered the child a hand to shake, which Pearl bashfully accepted, causing Lady Anne's heart to swell with affection (just as Pearl had intended).

"I take it you've only recently arrived here?" Lady Anne questioned, placing a light but protective hand on Pearl's slender shoulder.

The little girl shook her head, and held up her blue water bottle. "What is this for?" she queried, and the Lady shrugged, her black eyes scanning the other lost souls.

"I'm not actually certain," she replied honestly, looking at her own emerald bottle. "All I can remember is—is the—" and she stopped, dark eyebrows furrowing. "Actually, I can't," she confessed. "I can't remember; I feel as though I've been here for centuries, and… Actually," she sighed, her black eyes suddenly wistful, "all I can remember is my darling Elizabeth's face."

"Elizabeth?" Pearl queried, curious. "Who's Elizabeth?"

Lady Anne looked at her and smiled. "My daughter," she informed her softly. "My only daughter; I named her Elizabeth, after her grandmother."

"Oh," Pearl managed to say, feeling deflated and vaguely miffed that Lady Anne hadn't forgotten about all other children the moment she had clapped her eyes on Pearl's sweet, pretty face. But then her eyes roved over her newly-acquired diamonds, and the smart of rejection was soon replaced by the more familiar feeling of being young and sweet and pretty enough to make fully-grown women in odd black dresses relinquish their diamonds without resorting to the degrading and gauche use of threats.

And so they continued, Pearl and her Lady Anne, their respective activities (giggling over diamonds for one, cooing over the giggler for the other) for quite some time, until it suddenly struck Pearl to query as to where they were and what was going on.

And it was here that Lady Anne's aristocratic face creased into a frown, her thin lips pursed. "Well…" she began, fumbling with her own hot water bottle as an odd expression of confusion stole across her intelligent face. "To be honest, Little Pearl, I—"

And then something rather extraordinary happened: for though Lady Anne's lips continued to move, no words issued forth, causing Pearl to crease her forehead in a frown before hurriedly straightening her face with a slight squeak for fear of premature wrinkling. Barely a second had passed before the frown stole across her face once more, thus rendering this action futile, for it was then that Pearl realised that her squeak was one of silence. And all around her, the entire inexplicably amassed hot water bottle bearing mob of the misty moor had also fallen silent; why, even the rustling of their clothing was soundless.

Pearl should know, for, in a childish bid to ascertain whether she had been somewhat deafened or no, she had taken to jumping up and down as loudly as she knew how and pulling at the clothing of others (though not Lady Anne, of course, for she was too regal and refined to be subjected to such treatment from a sweet little lowborn creature such as her, _and_ she had given her a very pretty expensive present) and, upon nearing the very ledge overlooking the chasm of desperation, smacked them with her hot water bottle, which was the only purpose that she could see of having one. When these rather discourteous actions bore no auditory results, little Pearl then proceeded to cover up her sweet little ears and scream in deafened fear, for if little Pearl was deaf, then how could little Pearl be perfect? Pearl Sparrow was always perfect; that's why people loved her so.

Of course, Pearl really needn't have worried as greatly as she had (overreacting was one of her _very few_ flaws), for at that moment, a clear, omnipresent female voice announced in a detached, civilised manner,

"Could all Enlightened Buddhists please make their way to Gate 57. That's all Enlightened Buddhists—to Gate 57."

Pearl paused, perfect little white hands still pressed against her perfect little white ears, and blinked her sweet blue eyes once, twice, thrice in confusion.

"Please have your boarding pass and passport ready for inspection; management would like to remind all customers that the unlawful possession of prohibited articles and substances will result in an immediate reversion to _Samsara_."

Pearl squeaked and jumped into Lady Anne's arms as there was a sudden barrage of rather English-sounding curses (surely _Buddhists_ don't use the word 'bollocks' so sparingly?) followed by the throwing away of various items including but not limited to alcohol, tobacco, sovereign rings, baseball caps, hash, MP3 players, well-thumbed copies of the _Kama Sutra_, and a stuffed yellow duck that quacked whenever its midsection was forcefully squeezed. This lackadaisical discard of various materialistic items no decent Enlightened Buddhist would possess in the first place took all in all a grand total of forty-seven minutes, so that when the vaguely irritated but overall unruffled voice of the omnipresent female returned with a composed, "This is the final boarding call for the 172541681245G to Mahaparinirvana," followed by a snappish, "Get to it, you feckless celibates!" there was a sudden stampede of Enlightened Buddhists making their way across the misty moor, hot water bottles clutched tightly in their hands.

Pearl, of course, was naturally rather confused, and after clinging tightly to Lady Anne's slender shoulders for a few more moments, slid down to hesitantly approach one of the many piles of prohibited articles left behind by the Enlightened Buddhists being perused by the remainder of the hot water bottle bearing throng. She found herself oddly drawn to the talking duck, which of course, was a late twentieth, early twenty-first century creation, but then again, the benefit of living (and the term 'living' is used quite loosely) in the afterlife was that they were more or less three centuries ahead of the current time. She also picked up one of the remaining MP3 players (although of course she did not know that this was the name of the item, nor the purpose of it), which were apparently a sought-after item by the scavengers, small and slender and a deep purple in colour, and after examining it closely for several minutes and batting childishly at the dangling black earphones, proceeded to bite into it, and failed, for Pearl's strong little white teeth were unable to penetrate the thick shell of mass-produced plastic, a result which caused her to frown and turn to Lady Anne, who candidly confessed that she herself did not know what to do with the lump, but suggested that it may be a form of jewellery.

"It's rather ungainly, don't you think?" Pearl asked, trying to slip the odd object about her neck. Of course the MP3, being such as it was, suffered greatly from that which was the curse of all portable music-playing devices, and that was the dreaded bane of tangled earphones.

Now Pearl, being the sweet bouncy pouting pirate's daughter that she was, should of course be expected to undo knots and tangles with relative ease; however, if we could pause for a moment to reflect on a seemingly innocuous but crucial aspect of little Pearl Sparrow's character, using the metaphor of knots, we could easily conclude that little Pearl, sweet impish little creature that she was, whilst skilled at creating a fantastically wide range of complicated and elaborate tangles, was quite unable to untangle them again, which could clearly be seen in Pearl's epic struggle with the MP3 player that mocked her so with its seemingly matted wires; and with this rather blatant character insight concluded, the author now breathes a sigh of relief, for she has successfully justified the presence of MP3 players in the eighteenth century afterlife in less than a page on Microsoft Word, and in doing so, has also established a firm yet shaky ground for further modern references to occur later on.

(Of course, the author could also have simply written "The afterlife is three centuries ahead of the current time" and left it at that, but it would have been far less eloquent and not have taken up nearly as much room, which would surely prompt a lazily browsing lecturer to question as to what, exactly, the author was doing that was far more interesting than an essay on the themes of Kate Chopin's tedious and unimaginative magnum opus _The Awakening_.)

But to return to the narrative:

"Lady Anne; oh Lady Anne," little Pearl lamented, shaking the current bane of her existence ruefully.

The dark lady took pity on the sweet, blue-eyed creature, and carefully plucked the object out of her sweet white hands. They spent several minutes in companionable silence, in which maternal Lady Anne set about elegantly attacking the knots, whilst Pearl picked up the inanely grinning duck and, clutching it tightly to her chest, sat at Lady Anne's feet with a calculated expression of lovable bewilderment, the occasional squawking of the duck being the only betrayal of her anxiety.

"Lady Anne," Pearl said after fifteen minutes or so had passed, "exactly how long have you been here—wherever _here_ is?"

"Oh, Little Pearl," Lady Anne sighed, the black wires having been mostly straightened, with only a handful of entangled snares left to correct. "That I do not know; I feel as though I have been here for nigh two centuries." Her eyes, black and beautiful, looked down at the child, and Pearl was touched by the soft melancholy she saw there.

"So—So how long am I to stay here, then? Until—Until whatever comes next?"

Lady Anne did not reply—how could she? She herself did not know—and reached out to carefully stroke Pearl's silky black hair in a comforting gesture. In response, Pearl allowed her big blue eyes to slip closed as she leaned into the lady's hand, squeezing her big yellow duck and earning an indignant quack for all her troubles.

* * *

It did not take long for Pearl to see why Lady Anne was unable to keep track of her time at the place on the misty moor: there was no day, there was no night, there wasn't even the hint of a playful breeze; only a vast expanse of overcast skies streaked in grey, and a mild climate that neither warmed nor cooled Pearl's delicate skin, which itself had been born into the questionable embrace of the Caribbean sun. This still, perpetual, unchanging world unsettled little Pearl, who attempted to distract herself from her fears by talking rather animatedly with Lady Anne, and listening intently to what the woman herself had to say.

Lady Anne, Pearl had decided, was rather beautiful; true, her skin was darker than was fashionable, her lips perhaps a little thin and pale, and her long black hair hanging straight about her stiff black bodice in inadvertent rebellion to the flowing ringlets that were so in vogue (the lady having long ago abandoned her then-fashionable French hood). She was also slimmer than most, with a relatively flat chest despite being a mother, and Pearl could find no evidence of hips beneath that long black skirt; only a long straight waist that at some point ended at the beginning of legs. And yet, despite these somewhat boyish and supposedly unattractive defects, there was something about her—the poise with which she commanded herself, her intelligence, burning and sparkling like unquenchable flames—that Pearl found absolutely riveting.

It reminded her a bit of her Si-Si; of course, Pearl's Si-Si was an extremely attractive woman, and she knew it well, but having spent time with both Lady Anne and, seemingly long ago, her own Si-Si, Pearl was led to conclude that the two were rather alike, albeit in exceptionally different ways: Lady Anne was not conventionally attractive, yet could hold one in thrall, whilst Si-Si, whose own initial appearance was one of a woman whose beauty was matched only by her arrogance and superficiality, was somehow able to charm those around her to see her as more than a pretty, petty whore. And they were both very intelligent and highly-educated, in spite of their sex, which, considering Pearl's own precocity, made them all the more endearing to her sweet little heart.

Currently, Lady Anne was telling little Pearl tales of little brown-eyed, golden-haired, toddler-aged Elizabeth, and wondering where she was now, and what she looked like, and how old was she, and was she married, and how did her father treat her now that she, Lady Anne, was here, wherever _here_ was?

Pearl had reached out with a delicate little hand to assure her newfound mother figure that her "darling little Princess Elizabeth" was quite all right, and that she was, more likely than not, engaged to a handsome, strapping manual labourer whilst 'secretly' lusting after a dark criminal figure of ambiguous identity, and that this little love triangle was all taking place amidst adventures of the most exciting and spellbinding nature before ultimately culminating in a life or death scenario which resulted in "Princess Elizabeth" choosing the handsome strapping manual labourer whilst leaving her own feelings towards the dark criminal figure as hazy and ambivalent as ever, thus spurning a great many tales and yarns of her actually preferring the ambiguous criminal figure and choosing him either before or after a night of uncontrollable passion which more often than not concluded with her bearing him the first of many children.

"…Or she could have just tossed a coin," Pearl concluded sweetly, which caused Lady Anne's smile, which had been a strong, constant presence upon her attractive face throughout Pearl's longwinded speech, to split into delighted laughter.

"Oh my! But what a delightful imagination you have!" she cried, clapping her hands in delight. She smiled fondly at the child, and, with some hesitancy, leaned closer to place a kiss on the girl's smooth forehead.

This sweet, intimate moment was smothered by the sudden spell of silence that stealthily crept across the misty moor, much like it had done long ago, and the invisible woman's polite, monotonous voice once again echoed across the sky,

"Could all English Christians and atheists please make their way to Gate 24. English Christians and atheists to Gate 24, please."

Lady Anne stiffened and clung tightly to Pearl, who in her turn clung tightly to her newfound toy duck, which gave an annoying quack.

"Oh," Lady Anne whispered, stroking Pearl's arm to soothe her own fears. "Oh, dear me; it's finally happening."

"What is?" Pearl asked fearfully, not at all liking the apprehensive timbre of Lady Anne's voice. "Lady Anne, what is happening? Is it bad?"

"What I've been waiting for," Lady Anne told the child, stroking the girl's soft, silky hair. "What we've been waiting for."

"But Lady Anne, please do tell me—_what_ is that?"

Lady Anne looked down at confused little Pearl, and smiled comfortingly.

"That I do not know," she confessed, gently pushing Pearl away from her and urging the child to stand. "But I am certain that all will be well."

She took the child's hand and carefully led her away, following in the footsteps of the other people that were moving in a steady, certain direction, just as the omnipresent female announced,

"Please have your boarding pass and passport ready for inspection; management would like to remind all customers that the unlawful possession of prohibited articles and substances will result in imminent damnation regardless of whether you have led a life of sin or no, because hey, when it comes to Christianity, isn't that ultimately the bottom line?"

Little Pearl blinked and frowned and looked up at her older companion in pretty-faced confusion. "Lady Anne," she queried most politely, "oh Lady Anne; who is that, and why does she keep making such horrible anti-religious comments?"

Lady Anne smiled softly down at the adorably curious child and replied that, like so many of Little Pearl's big questions, she did not know the answer, or she would have happily answered them all, and in great detail with numerous diagrams and illustrations too.

"But just hold on to my hand, and I assure you that all will be all right."

"Do you promise?"

The pair did not cease their steps, though their pace did slow slightly, and Lady Anne turned to look down at Pearl's anxious blue eyes, her expression hesitant.

"I…" she began, then stopped. "Oh, Little Pearl, if I could I would, but as it is I can't so I shan't."

Pearl scowled at this, and tightened her hold on both her duck (which quacked in response) and hot water bottle whilst with the other she clutched Lady Anne's hand.

Gate 24 loomed suddenly before them, a tall, iron-cast structure that in the swirling mist and grey light looked vaguely sinister. The gate must have had a cunningly-disguised chimney, of a sort, for above the tall, clean, interwoven metalwork, the words _Gate Twenty-Four_ arched and twisted like smoky dragons, sometimes darkening, sometimes lightening, but ever twisting and turning and writhing like a ghostly trinity of airborne snakes.

Pearl hated snakes; she stopped in her tracks and clutched tightly to Lady Anne's hand, shaking her head adamantly.

"Lady Anne! Lady Anne!" she cried in alarm, for, being the small sweet slender creature little Pearl irrevocably was, the child found that, no matter how hard she tried, she could not root herself into the soft yet springy grass beneath her feet, and through a combined effort of Lady Anne's pulling and the crowd's pushing, was swept away, swept forward, faster, faster, faster as the pace of the English souls increased.

"Pearl has a bad feeling about this!" was her final squeak of panic before she was forced pass the gate.

It slammed behind her with a clang of finality that made her start, clutching tightly all the while to the stuffed duck, which offered a sort of half-hearted quack of consolation.

And suddenly, Pearl Sparrow was moved to tears, and threw herself at Lady Anne's feet, weeping bitterly into the fine black skirt.

_There's no going back,_ she thought wildly, even though she did not know what or where _back_ was. _There's no going back, there's no going back, there's no going back…_

_And I want to go back. I don't know what or where it is, but I don't like it here!_

_I want my Papa; I want my Si-Si; I want my Mama._

_I want to go back._

She did not know it, but she had been scooped up into Lady Anne's arms once more, and was being patted, and comforted, and loved… by a complete stranger. This odd strange woman who little Pearl had never set eyes upon before was more affectionate than her own Papa was, and it was this single thought, more than anything else, that drove her to the edge of despair.

And then suddenly, she was being pried out of Lady Anne's arms and into those of another woman, and the girl was far too distraught by her own loveless hopelessness to protest, or even wonder what became of her newfound friend.

Waves upon waves upon waves of desolation tore at her heart as steadily and continuously as her papa's beloved sea broke upon the sandy beaches and jagged rocks of all the world's shorelines as everything terrible that had ever happened to her, her very _life_, flashed before her eyes: Being born the unwanted bastard daughter of a pirate and a whore; locked away in another room, in some cases a closet, when that same whore entertained her clients, whilst the pirate's own interest and affection in her was merely one of perfunctory obligation; her mother being struck unconscious and left to die for want of a shilling when she was barely four; being suddenly uprooted soon after and told to stay out of sight as her mother made the clearly painful decision of returning to the brothel she had run away from as a teenager; her papa when he had found out what his lover had done, and the nights of screaming and shouting that had followed…

But it wasn't just all of these terrible events that had happened to her that made her feel so unhappy and desolate, oh no; it was also her, little Pearl, that made her upset. She was born a bastard ('natural daughter' would have been the polite term, but Pearl had not grown up amongst polite people), and had not been baptised, had not been christened, had not been taken down in the registry of her parish… And she'd been a terrible, spoilt, self-centred little girl, and a terrible daughter; she had never truly honoured her mother or her father whilst she still had the chance—why, if anything, she went to great lengths to tease and mock them both! And her taste in company certainly wasn't very good either, because the first real friend that she had ever had was Si-Si, and that friendship had swiftly morphed into a bond of unconditional love and affection shared between that of a mother and child, and Si-Si herself had been a cheap, good-for-nothing whore, and she was such a horrible, selfish child in her life who not once had attempted to rectify her atheism, and—

_Wait a minute,_ Pearl thought, frowning suddenly as she clung to the faceless, nameless woman's shoulders. _Why would I ever wish to rectify my atheism? Religion has never played an important role in my life. And why am I getting so upset about what had occurred and subsequently been happily resolved many years ago? My parents love me, I know they do; it was only when _I _told them that I knew how unhappy they truly were with another, and how I would rather they go their separate ways than sacrifice their own personal happiness for mine that they finally ended their relationship. And whilst Si-Si _is _a whore, there's actually so much more to her than an occupational title, and I love her regardless of how she earns her coin, and I know Papa does too, even if he doesn't want to admit it. Why am I suddenly so fixated on her source of income? Papa is a pirate captain, which is far, far worse than being a prostitute, and yet I did not even question him. Why am I thinking like this? I _never _think like this._

_And why oh why oh why,_ she thought, now fuming slightly, _did I start to call myself a horrible little girl, when _everybody—_particularly me myself—knows that I am the cutest, sweetest, smallest, bounciest, most irresistible creature to have ever been created in the entire history of the world?_

And then she began to struggle, and bite, and kick, and hiss at her captor, hitting the woman multiple times over the head with the hot water bottle, and occasionally, the duck, which emitted a satisfactory quack of approving encouragement whenever she struck particularly hard.

When fifteen minutes of this yielded no result, she lowered her arms, thrust out her chin, widened her big blue eyes, and pouted.

The woman, a delicate redhead, cooed and immediately set her down on the ground, where she proceeded to gush, "Oh, what an _adorable_ little child!"

It seemed that not even an angel—for that, Pearl suspected, was what the woman in white was—could resist Pearl's Potent Pout of Disarmament: She could've stopped wars and saved thousands and thousands and thousands of lives simply by walking onto the battlefield with that Pout of hers. Pearl smirked and proceeded to feel very smug with herself.

"Oh, honestly, Dorothy," a man in white sighed, materialising suddenly into the room—the last time Pearl had checked, she had been on a grey, overcast moor, having been locked in by a gate self-labelled as Twenty-Four, but she supposed that in the afterlife, nothing made sense, and time was not linear, and what she had taken for everyday normalcy should not have been expected to abound _here_.

"All you had to do," the man was saying to his kind-hearted, redheaded colleague, "was hold on to her long enough for the Almighty to eradicate her free will and so deem her fit to enter heaven. That was it!"

"I'm sorry, Gabriel!" Dorothy cried, wringing her hands in despair. "But she—her eyes and—and her lips, they—together, they—I'm sorry, but I honestly don't know what came over me!"

The man was silent for a moment, looking intently at the flustered, agitated Dorothy. Then, slowly, he turned towards little Pearl, who was now clinging more tightly onto her duck than ever, and inadvertently quacking as a result.

"Might I see your boarding pass?"

Pearl blinked at this. "My… My boarding pass?" she parroted, flustered.

"Your hot water bottle."

"Oh! Why, yes—yes, of course you may." And she proceeded to hand over the container, watching as Gabriel unscrewed it and pulled out a long white sheet of paper, studying the writing on it meticulously.

"I didn't know that that was what was in there," she commented uneasily, but he ignored her, furrowing his golden brow and pursing his lips in puzzlement.

"Interesting," he said to himself, releasing the page, which curled back into the pinstriped hot water bottle of its own accord. He then pulled out another page, just as thin, just as white, but at least twice as long, looking carefully over it before glancing at Pearl, who shifted and squeezed her duck once more.

"Could you come here, please? I need to verify your identity."

Still clinging tightly to her big yellow duck, Pearl reluctantly came trotting over, where she was instructed to hold out first one hand, then the other, to open and close her mouth several times, like a fish, and then to widen, narrow, and close her eyes before blinking them several times in rapid succession. This last action inspired the comment of "Dorothy, you're right, that is quite cute," before Gabriel straightened once more and said in a firm, businesslike tone,

"If I was to tell you that merely several moments ago, our Lord Almighty God was invading and attempting to… _alter_ your mind, what would you—bearing in mind that He is listening as we speak—have to say to Him?"

Pearl blinked, confused, before looking up into the perpetual heavens (for though they were indeed inside and in a room, this was a room with no ceiling, the Purgatorial Construction Workers' Union having been on strike for the past three centuries) smirked, and lowered her gaze to look Gabriel directly in the eye.

"_Well,_" Pearl began, in her sweetest, most sugary voice, "if I was to talk with _your_ Almighty God, I cannot think of much to say, except to ask him why the world is the way it is, and why is there so much suffering, and _why_ did he permit the Original Sin to occur, and what did I do to lead such a terrible life, really, because I honestly don't believe that I've done anything _wrong_, Mr. Gabriel, sir—and don't give me that, 'It is the will of God, now eat your potatoes' excuse.

"And—And—And—And I would also… _request_ of him to please not go into my mind and play with it again, for if He does, then I can assure you that, even if I was damned to the deepest circle of Hell itself (not that I will be, seeing how I'm so terribly sweet and bouncy and lovable), I would climb my way up to Heaven, slip through the gates, knock on His front door, and all so that I could put my sweet little foot up His omnipresent arse, not only for being such a meddlesome git, but also because he did absolutely nothing but stand idly by when the concept of taxation first formed in the human mind; for if taxes had never been created, I'm sure my Mama's Mama wouldn't have had to sell _my_ Mama into a brothel, you see."

This speech would have indubitably been infinitely more offensive had it been voiced by anyone other than Pearl; and even so, the misleadingly saccharine tone did nothing to disguise the hateful, almost playful venom beneath.

The atmosphere in the room seemed to change then, becoming hot and stifling rather than mild and barely perceptible, and it was in these conditions that the three of them found themselves standing there for an eternity; not a noise made, not a breath released, nothing but the frozen, fickle silence between the unlikely trio.

"So it's true then," Gabriel said eventually, his eyes hard as he lowered his gaze to the page. "The First Daughter of Pleasure has at last return."

"Oh Father, help us," Dorothy whispered, stumbling suddenly back, and Pearl frowned at the palpable fear that seemed to pulse from every inch of the female angel, confused and more than a little taken aback.

"Gabriel…" Dorothy murmured, her voice low and fragile. "Gabriel, he's here… The… The Devil…"

"The Devil _cannot_ be here!" Gabriel snapped, rounding on her in annoyance. "He and His Wife are attending the Almighty's Annual Tea Party! Get a hold of yourself, Dorothy."

"I didn't mean… _Him_," Dorothy continued. "I meant… _him_. The Devil's Henchman. He's behind both you and the Daughter."

An arctic wind stole up of Pearl's spine, and she shivered, clinging further onto the duck, which released a quack of panic: As though it had been a pre-arranged signal, both Gabriel and Dorothy melted into thin air, leaving little Pearl all alone in the clean white room, with only the… _Devil's Henchman_… for company.

Pearl Sparrow, of course, was still as frozen as ever, her heart having long ago stopped beating out of an overwhelming fear for her wellbeing. Satan's henchman: good God, what horrifying monster could be lurking behind her that so frightened the two angels that they had rather flee like cowards than stand and fight?

_Papa once told me that he made a deal with the Devil,_ she thought to herself, terrified that she wasn't remembering to breathe. _But he never told me what it was; he never told me whether it had ever been settled._

_Perhaps that's the reason why whatever… _thing _is behind me is doing here: Perhaps that's why I couldn't go straight to Heaven; the Devil's called in his debt, and Papa refused to pay it, so… so…_

_So he came after me instead._

And it was only then that little Pearl truly began to feel afraid.

She had never believed in Heaven or Hell or immortal souls and eternal damnation; oh, she'd grown up with the Christian teachings and mythology all around her, of course, as most colonial children of her day and age did… But whilst other children accepted the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit with a cold, unquestioning solemnity, Pearl would raise her hand and squeak questions of exactly what was Original Sin, and how could it be that _it_ was 'inherited' but all other sins were not, and why did the Devil choose a serpent, and why was it the woman and not the man that had been tempted, and if man was stronger and morally superior to woman, then why was he so easily swayed by his wife, because that _certainly_ didn't sound like something a natural leader would allow himself to do, and was the eating of the forbidden fruit _really_ as terrible as it seemed, for how _stupid_—sorry, 'innocent'—could Adam and his wife have been to not have realised they'd been frolicking naked since the dawn of time, and could she please go to the toilet? (Not that Pearl was speaking from personal experience or anything.)

Suddenly, Pearl wished that she had been more Christian in her life; her Papa, she remembered, had never seemed very interested in the topic of religion, and little Pearl, in a bid to mimic her Papa's casual atheism, had taken it a little too far, as children were wont to do, and now she was going to burn in Hell, _Christian_ Hell, because of it, and it was all because she was secretly hoping it would impress her Papa, but it hadn't impressed her Papa, and now her eternal damnation would be for naught.

The slow, lazy footsteps approaching her were what made her spring into action; with a high-pitched battle cry bordering upon a scream of fear, she had hurled herself forward, moving only two feet before tripping on her long blue skirt, the big yellow duck being the only item that broke her fall.

She didn't stay lying there, though; she could hear him, _feel_ him coming closer, closer, _closer_ with those slow, mocking steps, and she knew—oh, how she knew!—that the henchman was only about four feet—perhaps less—away. Steeling herself, her entire body shaking in a mixture of fear and repressed sobs, she clumsily pushed herself upwards, forcing her dissenting arms to support herself, before slowly, carefully, apprehensively turning to look up at him.

What she saw—or rather, _who_ she saw, standing there, bold and assured and utterly unashamed, made her mouth drop open in shock.

_Oh my God: H-How is that possible?_

And all little Pearl could do was stare, and stare, and stare, whilst the man, the surprisingly, _unbelievably_ familiar man, stared back.

"F…" she began, and stopped with a slight frown. "F… F… Fa… Fa… Father… _Father_…"

The man cocked his head to the side to indicate his rapt attention, and it was this action that finally steeled her to say aloud his full name.

"_Father Dickinson?_"

The man nodded vigorously in confirmation of his identity—as if she needed it!

"Y-You… You're… _You're_ Satan's _henchman?_"

Father Dickinson merely raised and lowered his shoulders in a shrug of nonchalance.

"It's always the ones you least suspect."

**TBC**

**AN:** As a last minute note, you may or may not have noticed, but in the past week/fortnight something happened to the email alerts system; the site says that they're working now, but I though that, in case you didn't get an author's alert or whatever, it's only fair to tell you that chapter 2 of **How My Perfect Life Was Inverted II** is now up, and has been for quite some time now, so if you've not yet read it, and are interested, go check it out. I've also uploaded this yesterday, but for some reason the site hates me—or my computer—and deleted it, so I'm putting it up again, where hopefully it'll STAY.


	2. The Pub of Unknown

**Spawn of Satan**

**Part II:** The Pub of Unknown

Whilst darling bouncy little Pearl occupied herself with histrionic hyperventilation over the presence of Father Dickinson, the Father's master occupied himself with subtly cheating in a drinking contest in a metaphysical pub. Now, this pub was indeed a strange pub, affectionately termed The Pub of Unknown: it was of unknown size and unknown origin; the patrons clumsily followed an unknown dress code, the opening hours were not known to any, not even the barkeeps with the unknowable faces. Nobody knew what ingredients were in the drinks that were consumed or food that was served, nor which material went to make the glasses and cutlery; if there were age restrictions of any kind, they were ignored; no one knew how they got there, or where _there_ was, or how much anything cost, or what the currency was, or if, indeed, there was any sort of currency.

So it was your average British pub, basically.

"He's cheating," Allah grumbled when Satan went away to order the next round of drinks. Now Allah, of course, did not take part in the drinking contest; he was one of the few patrons of the Pub of Unknown who, when asked what he would like to have, always replied, "Your unknown metaphysical equivalent to orange juice or tap water, if you please."

Jesus Christ waved the accusation away, fingers going to his mouth in an attempt to suppress a drunken hiccup. "Oh really, Ally," he burped. "You're too suspicious by far; why does no one forgive and forget in the afterlife? And really, why would His Infernal Majesty cheat on something as mundane as a drinking contest?" Christ was a young, handsome fellow with earnest eyes and a quick smile that everybody couldn't help but be charmed by; even the Devil had been won over in the end (though his wife, a reluctant Fallen Angel who had always liked Jesus since he was a little toddler, could have had something to do with it).

Allah sighed and rolled his eyes. "You're too trusting," he said to the bright, honest-faced man, "It's no wonder you ended up crucified."

Jesus literally turned the other cheek, closed his eyes, and counted slowly back from ten. Everyone, barring his Father, always used _that_ incident when they wished to put him in his place. It had been tolerable for the first century or so, but now it was beginning to irk him.

"Yes, I can see your point," he said serenely. "But the look on everyone's faces when Father resurrected me was _so_ worth it."

There was a crash, followed by a string of blasphemous curses that made Christ's cheeks glow scarlet.

"That is _it_!" His Infernal Majesty grumbled. "Next time, Shiva gets the drinks!"

Shiva, who was on the other side of the bar flexing his numerous biceps in an effort to charm a pretty blue-haired angel with a considerable bosom, paused in his macho flirting to glare at the Devil, making several rather crude gestures with three of his hands, but the Antichrist ignored him.

"Alright, who ordered the metaphysical equivalent of the Bloody Mary?"

Jesus closed his eyes, a pained look on his face, and Satan smirked inwardly.

"That'll be me," Vishnu said, raising his hand. The red—or _was_ it red?—drink slid easily across the table of unknown wood.

"Piña colada?"

"Here," Buddha said, and Allah turned to glare at him.

"What?" he snapped. "I've achieved Enlightenment now; there's no need to deprive myself any longer, is there?"

"I'm not admonishing you for drinking alcohol," Allah replied stiffly. "I always knew you and your Buddhists didn't have any _real_ self-restraint—you just have to look at your lax beliefs and principles for that; no, I'm scowling at you for not choosing a more respectable drink."

"What's so disrespectable about piña coladas?"

"Well… It's a rather poncey drink, innit?"

"There is _nothing_ feminine about piña coladas!" Buddha snapped, hurriedly throwing away the pink paper umbrella whilst Satan casually slipped the metaphysical equivalent of vodka into the Christian God's unguarded cup (Jesus was far too absorbed in the discussion between Buddha and Allah to pay attention; if he hadn't had been so trusting, he might have kept an eye open).

"Cocktails are quite feminine drinks, overall," Allah noted serenely.

"But at least they _are_ a drink," Buddha sneered in reply, casting a derogatory eye over Allah's orange juice, and Satan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking at the profound, philosophical conversation his colleagues were having.

"My choice of orange juice in no way undermines the effeminacy of your piña colada! I'm just saying that they're not as masculine, as say… The Devil's rum," he pacified with a nod towards the man in question.

"Sorry about that," the Almighty announced as he returned to sit beside his son. "Gabriel's been harping on about the return of the First Daughter of Pleasure."

"Oh, is that what all of the text messages were about?" Satan queried politely, sliding the Black Russian across to his supposed archenemy.

"Yeah, but I've given him a few tranquilliser darts, so hopefully he'll be out for next century or so."

"Nice," the Devil commented, taking a sip of his rum. "I never did like Gabby; always thought he was a bit up himself."

"You know, you're not actually the first to call him anal," God agreed, his finger tracing the rim of his cup thoughtfully. "He's been getting on everyone's nerves lately; time to demote him, d'you think?"

Satan raised his hands. "He's _your_ archangel, mate."

God merely grimaced. "Don't remind me," he grumbled, groaning when an all-too familiar beep came from his belt.

"Gabriel again?" Satan guessed.

"No, Mickey."

"Mouse?" Jesus guessed.

"Not for another three centuries; which reminds me," he added, turning to his alleged nemesis, "how _is_ your son handling the creation of what will become the Walt Disney Corporation?"

"Oh, you know; early days…"

"Well you better tell him to hurry up; his deadline is only two-hundred-and-seventy-years away!"

"Watch your tone," the Devil warned. "You don't want me raising my Armies of Darkness and storming the Gates of Heaven, do you? Besides, the kid _is_ only four-hundred-years-old…"

"That's no excuse," God dismissed, and Satan narrowed his eyes.

"Don't tell that to the missus, she'll rip your testicles off."

"Yes, but we're immortal, we can always reattach—or wait for them to grow back…"

"Doesn't stop it from hurting," the Devil muttered. "Trust me on that one." He then lowered his eyes to his rival's belt. "Are you going to get that, or…?"

"Oh, _fine_," God relented, stomping away from the table again. "Don't touch my drink!" he threw over his shoulder without turning his head, thus unable to witness Satan freezing with his arm outstretched at these words.

"How does he _do_ that?" he asked Jesus, disgruntled.

The Christian Messiah shrugged. "He's omniscient, what more can you expect?"

"So, Pyro," Buddha said casually, leaning closer to the Devil and patting his hand affectionately. "How's life been for the past century or however long it's been?"

Satan scowled and drew his hand away; like most of his equals, he didn't really like Buddha; nobody did (with the exception of Jesus Christ, which speaks for itself, really.)

"Nothing's really changed…" he replied casually. "Had to let some of the uglier concubines go to make room for the seven thousand new ones, but besides that…"

"'Uglier concubines?'" Allah repeated, nose wrinkling in disgust. "I'm sorry, I might not have been paying much attention to the inner workings of Hell's Harems, but exactly which ones are what a _normal_ person would deem 'ugly,' or even 'vaguely unattractive,' for that matter?"

"Are you implying I only allow visually-pleasing women into my harems? That's rather offensive, actually."

"Well, don't you?"

Satan drew himself up to his full height. "Al, I think it's time you realise that there is more to a beautiful woman than a nice face and magnificent bosom—"

"Is there?" Buddha asked petulantly.

"Of course not, but that's entirely irrelevant—" And he turned back to Allah. "As I was saying, sometimes beauty comes from the _inside_; those with beautiful interiors and only just above averagely pleasing exteriors were the ones I got rid of."

"Ugh, men," Jesus rolled his eyes. Every other god ignored him; they were used to his vaguely effeminate mannerisms.

"Oh. So, how are the concubines, then?" Buddha butted back in, and Satan sighed.

"Bloody irritating; they think that, for some inexplicable and unjustified reason that defies all forms of logic, that just because they are a part of my harems, it means they automatically have the right to share my bed—"

The remaining deities looked at one another and rolled their eyes, causing the Devil to stop, looking at them in confusion.

"What?"

"Well, this is just an example of infernal hypocrisy, innit?" Allah piped up. "You're like this every century we meet, whining about the number of concubines you're supposed to spend your days and nights impregnating—"

"A terrible way to spend eternity, to be sure," Vishnu added.

"Do you realise what the impregnating _leads_ to?" the Devil asked in disbelief. "_Children_—Children of varying colours, heights, and hybrids. And do you know what that leads to? Cannon fodder for my Armies of Darkness. (And don't the mothers whine about _that_ fate, the ungrateful harlots.) And what, do you ask, is the purpose of creating my Armies of Darkness? To storm up and take over Heaven—and why, in the name of God's arse—"

"Oi, I heard that!" boomed an omnipresent voice.

"—would I want to do that?" the Devil continued, ignoring the interruption with practised ease. "I mean, have any of you _been_ to Heaven? Put your hand down, Christ, you look overly enthusiastic and vaguely retarded—Heaven is overrated," he continued, whilst Jesus lowered his eyes in disappointment.

"Now that's just one step too far," God announced his return, placing a hand protectively on his son's shoulder. He fixed his unwavering eyes on Satan, who glared defiantly back. "Mick's just raised up the subject of the FDoP—"

"What's that? 'Fed up?'" Buddha asked, wrinkling his forehead in confusion at the same time Satan calmly stated,

"Take it up with the wife; it's _her_ daughter."

"Yes, but she's yours as well," the Almighty reminded.

"With a smidgeon more respect than is actually due, all things considering," the Devil calmly replied, "I very rarely get involved with child-rearing for fear that… that emotional… _things_ develop."

"Do you mean 'love?'" Jesus asked, and Satan winced.

"Yes; exactly. _That_ is the emotional thing I was referring to; trust _you_ to bring it up," he added with a disparaging glare.

"But surely you love your wives," Jesus pursued.

"How _dare_ you accuse me of such filth!"

"…Well, what about the principal wife, then?"

"That's not _love_, per se; that's just… an emotional… _thing_…"

"_Anyway,_" the Lord brushed over, steering the conversation back to the original topic. "As I was saying, this First Daughter business has got all of the admin department in a slight panic, which I personally wouldn't mind, considering how they're all just a bunch of under-qualified tossers with nothing better to do; that being said, the quality of the filing has really gone downhill since the FDoP's return…"

There was a brief silence as Satan allowed this statement to sink in.

"…You want me to spend my night off chasing after a prematurely-deceased chit just so you can get your _filing cabinets_ back in order?"

"Yes; would you mind terribly?"

"Well of course I would _mind_—"

"Sorry, excuse me," Allah interjected with a disbelieving glance at the Devil, "a night off from _what_, exactly?"

"Partaking in reluctant fornication with beautiful concubines," Vishnu replied on the Antichrist's behalf (and he most certainly didn't appreciate _that_ input).

"It's a lot more tiring than it looks—" he began heatedly.

"Well, I suppose, if you don't have a lot of experience—" Buddha interposed, but was silenced as Satan's fist closed tightly about his trachea.

"Don't strangle the demigod," Allah put in mildly, sipping absentmindedly on his non-alcoholic beverage.

It took several more of these verbal exchanges, and a narrowly-missed slap from a passing angel, to finally convince the Devil to leave, after which he could be found grudgingly walking along in the vague hope that he would altogether miss his rather inept henchman and the newly-acquired charge, and after half an hour or so of mindless wandering, decided it best that he return home, where the promise of calm and rest awaited him.

He was being, of course, as these characters tend to be, hopelessly optimistic.

* * *

"No!" Pearl continued to squeak, banging her hands petulantly on his back, refusing to be slung over the henchman's shoulder any longer. "No! No! No! You _cannot_ make me go to Hell! I'm too small and cute and—"

"—sweet and bouncy to go to Hell," Father Dickinson completed wearily. "Yes, yes, my small, cute sweet, bouncy one, so you've said for the past two hours…"

Pearl stopped her pounding to cross her arms as best she could, scowling at the unfairness of the afterlife.

"Your Infernal Majesty!" he suddenly exclaimed, and Pearl let out a gasp as she found herself suddenly falling with an undignified squeak as the henchman knelt submissively before Her Infernal Majesty.

"Oh honestly, Leonard, what's all this?" Pearl heard a woman's voice ask as she sat up, shook her head, and proceeded to look very cute and sweet and bouncy and lovable. "My ladies have been complaining of a horrendous yet oddly endearing squeaking…"

Pearl squeaked indignantly at this, which probably didn't help matters.

"Oh, it's _you_!" she heard the woman squeal in delight, and before Pearl could turn around and take a long hard look at the woman addressed as 'Your Infernal Majesty,' she found herself being scooped up and pressed against a warm female body, her skull being covered in adoring kisses.

"My little Pearl!" the unnamed, unseen woman continued to coo. "My darling little baby! Oh, honey, how I've _missed_ you…"

Pearl's blue eyes widened at this.

"_Si-Si?_" she squeaked, more in shock than anything else.

"Si-Si? Who's that? You've never called me Si-Si before…" the woman who apparently _was not_ Si-Si continued to frown, and Pearl found herself being turned around in the woman's arms until she was looking into a face that undeniably _was_ Si-Si's.

"Whatever happened to 'Mama?'"

Pearl could only stare up at the gently smiling woman in shock, and in the minute or so of shocked staring that followed, Her Infernal Majesty's husband came waltzing in, muttering under his breath as he slung his coat carelessly across the still-kneeling Father Dickinson's back.

"Sweetheart, you wouldn't _believe_ some of the ridiculous things that the Almighty Cretin was saying to me earlier this evening," he told her offhandedly. "Some drivel about our first child returning, which as we know is completely ridiculous, as she's not scheduled to die for another seventy years, by which point she would have successfully taken over the human world under my name, thus converting every one of those miserable transient-living bastards into worshipping at my—"

"Hornie!" the woman that looked like Si-Si but was apparently not Si-Si exclaimed excitedly, turning on her heel and holding the slack-jawed Pearl out happily. "Hornie, look!"

For a moment, Pearl and the Devil merely stared at one another in mutual amazement.

"…Pearl?"

"Papa?"

Satan cast his eyes ironically heavenward before lowering his gaze to look at the girl once more.

"Oh, bugger."

**-x!x-**

**AN:** Te he he…


	3. The House of the Damned

**Spawn of Satan**

**Part III:** The House of the Damned

When the shock of seeing Si-Si and Papa in _Hell_, of all places (and exactly what did her Si-Si do to end up in Hell, anyway? She could think of a few reasons why her Papa ended up in Hell, but _Si-Si_?), little Pearl's big blue eyes—which, due to all the shocks and surprises that had pounced upon her unsuspecting little self in the Afterlife, were now effectively twice the size than would be considered healthy by numerous opticians and other medical experts—soon saw that if, indeed, the man that the woman-who-was-not-Si-Si-but-undeniably-looked-rather-like-a-Si-Si-should had called "Hornie," and indeed, the woman-who-was-not-Si-Si-yet-certainly-looked-like-a-Si-Si that Father Dickinson had referred to as "Your Infernal Majesty," but when Her Infernal Majesty had been confronted with Pearl and had squealed and had asked darling little Pearl to call her "Mama," yes, _that_ woman…

—And now, due to all of her scattered internal ramblings, little Pearl had quite forgotten what she was going to say, or rather, what she had been trying to say. Whimpering, she put her small little hands to her face whilst silently complaining about how difficult it was to live inside her head, an action which caused the Si-Si look-a-like (and sound-a-like, and feel-a-like, and smell-a-like, come to think of it) to pull the little girl, who she had plopped into her shocked husband's slack arms, from out of the Devil's stunned embrace, kissing and cradling the child as though she were her own.

"Oh, honestly, Lucie," (Lucie, of course, being short for Lucifer) Her Infernal Majesty sighed, irritated. "Our first daughter, gone for eight years, and this is how you greet her. I honestly can't think of why she wished to return." And then to Pearl: "Why did you come back, hmm?" she cooed between vaguely nauseating cuddles and kisses. "Did little Pearl miss her Mama? Mama missed little Pearl, _oh yes she did._"

His Infernal Majesty winced at this, embarrassed by such a sickening display of affection, and surreptitiously glanced about to see if anyone important was about.

"Darling," he began, stepping a little closer but making certain to remain out of the stupefied Pearl's reach, "Haven't we both agreed a millennium ago that she really was too old for such talk?"

"No, we did not," the wife replied, now rearranging little Pearl's silky black hair amidst yet further hugs and kisses. The child was still too shocked to notice, let alone react.

"Sweetheart," he tried again, "she's sixty-five million years old…"

"Yes yes yes, Lucie," Her Infernal Majesty brushed away, "I'm well aware that spiritually, she's sixty-five million years old, but oh, look at her! She looks like an ickle eight year old _human_ Pearl! _Don't_ you?"

"_Avie…_" he said warningly, but would say no more, for at that very moment, Pearl opened her mouth and released a piercing scream. Both Devil and wife remained unaffected by this.

"Oh, they never change!" the woman that the Devil had called Avie gushed, apparently pleased that little Pearl was shrieking as loud as her little lungs would allow.

"Yes, she's still as attention-seeking as ever," the Devil remarked, and was rewarded a glare at this.

"Hush hush, little Pearl," Avie said soothingly, stroking her hair whilst Satan sighed and settled down into a chair that had miraculously appeared, using the still-prostrated Father Dickinson as a footstool. "Mama and Papa are both here now; you no longer have to be around that strange, incompetent, neglectful, dirt-ridden pirate—"

"NO!" Pearl squeaked, now attempting to wriggle herself out of Avie's grasp. "No no no! Don't you dare say that about _my_ Papa!"

The reaction Pearl's words caused was unprecedented; the Devil, who had been sipping at an alcoholic drink, began to choke amidst a disbelieving "_What?_"; his wife let out a gasp of horror, and proceeded to drop the little Pearl, where she bounced harmlessly off of the ground; and Father Dickinson unexpectedly straightened the better to bellow an enraged "How _dare_ you?", accidentally knocking the Devil off of his throne in the process.

For a moment, Pearl simply sat on the ground, mouth opened in dazed shock; then she shook her head, jumped onto her feet, and ran away screaming.

"Hornie, are you alright?" Avie cried, rushing to her husband's side and worriedly helping him up, running her hands over every inch of his body in search of injuries, whilst the Devil merely smirked and enjoyed the attention. "Darling, are you hurt?"

"I'll survive," Satan replied with the all the air of a seasoned warrior. "But I fear, my sweet, that our girl may not."

Her Infernal Majesty's disposition abruptly shifted; with a fierce battle cry, her elegant fingers, now elongated talons, clenched about her husband's throat, effectively throttling him as she demanded what he meant. Satan merely sighed and slipped easily out of her grip, holding her by the shoulders and fixing her with a displeased stare.

"I'm merely saying," he said calmly to the panicked mother, "that it appears as if little Pearl was running towards the House of the Damned."

Her Infernal Majesty's blue eyes widened. "D-Don't tease," she sputtered. "That's not kind, my Lord."

"And what's more, Your Majesty," Dickinson added, whimpering and falling to the ground in a bow at the glare His Infernal Majesty gave him; to stand whilst addressing one's superior was a clear mark of disrespect. Now, the Devil did not much care at such informal behaviour if it was directed towards his own person, but with his first wife it was another matter.

"Your Majesty," the henchman tried again, embarrassed at his faux pas, "I have been told that the House of the Damned is currently playing host to He who is simply known as the Darkness of God."

Avie closed her eyes and smiled, crumbling into her husband's arms and laughing softly in relief.

"Oh Hornie, you tease," she said affectionately. "You and I both know Bambi would never hurt a fly."

* * *

As luck would have it, Pearl was, indeed, running straight towards the House of the Damned. She didn't realise that she was running straight towards the House of the Damned, of course, any more than she realised she was running straight; for though Pearl jumped and leapt and twisted and turned, she had the unfortunate luck of running onto a lost-resistant path.

Now, a lost-resistant path was an enchanted passage, designed to help the inhabitants of Hell easily find their way to any given destination; it achieved this due to an enchantment placed upon it that forced the unwary traveller towards a specific, unchanging location. The moment a valid citizen's foot touched a lost-resistant path, he or she was doomed to follow it to the very end, be that harem or cesspit. Which was a wonderful invention for, say, a drunken Infernal Emperor attempting to locate his bedroom, but could be a little irritating for those who had only recently entered Hell's living quarters—and Pearl was decidedly _not_ a drunken Infernal Emperor.

Presently, Pearl's big blue eyes were able to spot what appeared to be a pale, white-blue edifice rising out of the swirling midst, and her pattering feet stopped as she stared at the building in a mixture of awe and hypnotism. She did not know what stone it was that the House was carved from, but she did know that it was incredibly shiny, and emitted a gentle, irresistible radiance that Pearl found immensely alluring. And without further ado, she forgot her panic, and proceeded to trot happily towards it, her reason being that such a pretty, shiny thing deserved _at least_ three pokes.

The closer Pearl got to the House of the Damned, the further she fell under its enchantment. She saw now that the stone from which it was carved was very much unlike anything Pearl had ever seen before; as a matter of fact, she was certain such a stone did not, could not exist in the human world, and took a moment to praise Hell's architecture.

The material from which the House was composed could best be described as being like polished ivory, streaked with powdered sapphire, and yet it was so much more than that. Why, it was as if someone had gathered fifteen tonnes of ivory (after disposing of the fifteen billion or so elephants that had been slaughtered, of course), had cleansed, buffed and polished each and every individual tusk with meticulous precision, placed them all into a giant melting pot, gently stirred in the five tonnes of pulverised sapphire required, tipped the pot over into a mould of the building looming before her, and had waited for it to set whilst they played a card game, at which they had lost, and had to forfeit the building to the Devil in payment.

She now stood about fifteen feet away from the House, and was studying it most intensely. Not only was it carved from a beautiful material that was unknown to common man, she decided, but it was also, simply put, quite beautifully carved. The entrance, for one, was a work of art; a door of what appeared to be a dark, glossy wood, with an intricate carving of a powerful sea god that could have been either Triton or Poseidon—Pearl was uncertain as to which—surrounded by a bevy of marine beauties. Above the door was a shell, inside which stretched out a sleeping Venus—or Aphrodite. She wasn't actually certain of the difference, little Pearl.

Just outside the door, two sirens stood erect, their magnificent wings furled and gently drooping, as though at rest. In their flawless hands were harps, wreathed with leaves and flowers, and as Pearl studied them, she decided that the Papa impostor must have had some input in the design, for they were shamelessly bare-breasted, and though it seemed as though their lips were parted in song, if she was to look closely at their expressions… Well, she wasn't certain if _singing_ was what they were actually doing.

Reluctantly dragging her eyes away from the entrance, she chose to study the walls of the building, noting that it seemed to be nothing more than various carved murals of frolicking, winsome mermaids, some with tails curled, darting amongst one another, heads thrown back in eternal laughter. Some of the mermaids carried flowers, whilst others sat curled on rocks, vainly combing their hair. Others simply sang.

Faced with such divine, intricate, and undeniable splendour, it was only natural that Pearl would go up and poke it.

Hard.

The result of such folly was a stubbed finger and a whimper of agony as she fell back, cradling the wounded hand as she bleated in pain. Her cries were such that it was inevitable the door would open, and a woman with flowing red hair peered out, curious as to what was creating such a noise. Seizing her opportunity, Pearl promptly burst into tears, and made a show of looking rather lost and sweet and forlorn.

"Oh, you poor thing!" the woman exclaimed, eyes studying Pearl with interest. "How did you find this place? Do come in; we never have visitors here, you know…" And she gestured that little Pearl come towards her, apparently unwilling to step outside the safety of her door.

Now Pearl, of course, was as hesitant as any other girl being invited into a shiny building by a pretty red-haired stranger, but she did so regardless, sneaking a peek pass the smiling stranger and deciding that any building playing host to a flying chipmunk was surely a building whose inhabitants Pearl could trust.

So in Pearl trotted, and she would have no doubt been rendered speechless by the beauty of the statues and aquatic frescoes alone, had she not been so intent on following the procession of the flying chipmunk. Rudely leaving her hostess to close the door, little Pearl bounced innocently after the rodent, giggling as she attempted to reach up and grab the creature and failing every time. The chipmunk veered left, into a room, and Pearl followed, stopping abruptly in the doorway, mouth open in shock.

The room, she saw, was _full_ of flying chipmunks.

And there, seated in the centre of it all, was a small creature with black wings and a mop of brownish hair, who was apparently conducting the entire spectacle. Beaming, the creature—who, Pearl supposed, did resemble a human boy—turned around, staring up at his airborne rodents in delight. Eventually, he sensed Pearl's presence, and turned to face her. He abruptly released a squeak, and the spell was shattered; all of the chipmunks came crashing down around him as he simply stared in shock. One even landed on his head, and proceeded to remain there, lifeless and unmoving.

Pearl supposed that the winged creature before her _was_ humanoid in that he had two arms, two legs, a face, a neck, hands, feet, fingers, hair, skin, mouth, nose, eyes, ears, toes, and, from the small glimpse of the mouth's interior she was able to glimpse, white teeth and a red tongue; but there the similarity ended.

The creature had two wings of fine leather, dangling lazily behind him; perhaps a little too small to be of any use for him, but they were there. Hidden in his hair were two small red horns, perhaps only an inch in length, thick and slightly curved. His eyes were black, blacker even than his wings, and completely so; unlike humans, he had no iris, or pupils, just a complete black… _thing_ that was very shiny and inky, like polished onyx. Framing these eyes were a pair of very human eyelashes that were extremely flutter-worthy, in Pearl's opinion. She assumed that the eyes were wide in shock; they appeared to be larger than would be deemed normal. His teeth, she supposed, were very clean, and all of them were a little sharpened; but the canines were the sharpest of them all, like a vampire.

All in all, she thought that he would make a very good pet; and with this objective in mind, she took one confident step towards him.

The creature squealed in fear, and, still seated on the floor, attempted to wriggle back, away from the approaching Pearl.

"Don't worry," she said cheerfully, patronisingly to the humanoid animal. "Pearl promises she won't hurt you."

This did nothing to calm the creature down; if anything, it only excited him further. Suddenly, he leapt up onto all fours, and attempted to crawl away, releasing several high bleats and squeals that sounded like music to Pearl's ears.

"Aw, you're very, very sweet," she said to it. "I think I'll call you Squeak; is that all right with you?"

Judging by the indignant squeak that followed, it most certainly _was not_.

"Pearl still thinks you're very very sweet," she repeated endearingly. "Come here, my little Squeak!"

Squeak squeaked and ran, wings flapping in panic, and a decidedly wingless Pearl took chase, all the while shouting, "Pearl's little Squeak! Pearl's little Squeak!"

**TBC**

**AN:** Sorry for the late update; so… Do you like "Squeak?"


	4. Bedtime

**Spawn of Satan**

**Part IV:** Bedtime

Being hell-spawn born and bred, Bambi had believed that he had seen, heard, and smelt every horrendous torture and paralyzing fear known to all god-kind: Now that he was being chased by a strange, humanoid creature who insisted on calling him 'Squeak', he was forced to reconsider this position.

The creature—the girl—was terrifyingly quick; more than once he felt her fingers brushing against his leathery wings, which trailed behind him, fluttering in spasmodic panic. With another yelp of fear, Bambi dived around another corner, silently crying out for his mother.

"Bambi!" came a woman's voice, sudden and alarmed; with a spurt of speed, he hurled himself into his mother's arms, clutching at her neck and whimpering in fear. "Oh darling! Oh, my dear little Bambi; whatever's the matter?"

Bambi simply screwed his black eyes shut and, in small, quiet tremble, whispered, "_It._"

"'It?'" his mother queried, just as the girlish creature whom he had never seen before shyly enquired, "Si-Si—um—Your Imperial Majesty?"

For a moment, Her Infernal Majesty merely looked from one child to another; and then, to Bambi: "Darling, don't you recognise your own sister?"

Bambi's head snapped up, eyes widening in shock at his mother's words.

"_Sister?_" he repeated, twisting in her arms to look back at the confused creature now standing before them. "Sister?"

"That's right."

Bambi leaned as far out from his mother's embrace as he dared, until he was hanging upside-down, peering closely at this confused, uncertain creature.

"That's not Melusinë!" he yelped, and bared his teeth in a snarl at the impostor.

"_Bambi!_" his mother scolded as the girl whimpered and backed away. "No no, darling, come here, come here; Bambi won't hurt you…"

"That's not Melusinë," Bambi was insisting stubbornly.

"_Bambi!_"

"I _am_ Pearl!" the girl squeaked indignantly, at which point Bambi pointed a triumphant finger and crooned victoriously, "_See?_"

Pearl merely fluttered her lashes in a silent bid at conveying her confusion; her jaw dropped open when she realised that her bewilderment went unnoticed by Her Infernal Majesty and Squeak. This had never happened before: in her short life, Pearl had been a great many things, but Ignored had never been one of them. She was at a loss of what to say.

"Oh, Bambi," Her Infernal Majesty continued to scold, "Really, you ought to show a little more respect—Not now, Melusinë," she dismissed just as Pearl was opening her mouth. This reaction only caused Pearl's blue eyes to widen further; confused, she stepped hesitantly towards the mother and son, looking up to see Her Infernal Majesty pull Squeak into a tight, loving embrace.

"Did she scare you? Hmm?" Her Infernal Majesty queried, rubbing her nose affectionately against her son's. Furrowing her brow, Pearl reached up and pulled at Si-Si impostor's skirt.

"In a minute, darling," the empress waved away, pulling the red material from out of Pearl's slack grip as she balanced her baby on her hip.

"W-W-W-What?" Pearl stuttered weakly, only to once again be Ignored. The girl didn't understand this at all; she was uncertain of how such a crime against nature could have ever occurred—until, that is, she looked closely at the Squeak held in the empress's arms.

_No!_ she thought, startled at what she had seen. _It can't be!_ Blinking in bewilderment, she reached up with a small white hand to rub first one eye, then the other; with this ritual successfully concluded, she looked again.

_NO!_

But the evidence was irrefutable:

Squeak was smaller than Pearl;  
Squeak was sweeter than Pearl;  
Squeak could also, quite possibly, be _bouncier_ than Pearl.

_**NO!**_

And with this last conscious thought, Pearl's big blue eyes rolled into her head as she abruptly fainted.

"Oh dear," Her Infernal Majesty hummed, gently placing her small son on the ground the better to scoop her unconscious daughter up. "Poor little Melusinë; I was wondering when this would all catch up with her."

"That's not Melusinë," Bambi continued to insist as he watched his mother cradle the impostor in her arms. "She's too small to be Melusinë."

"Oh stop it, Bambi," Her Infernal Majesty brushed away, gently nudging him forward with her toe. "Come on, it's high time you were in bed."

Bambi expressed his disappointment with a snarling pout.

* * *

"I'm not sleepy," Bambi was whining half an hour later as his mother tucked him up in bed beside a still-unconscious Melusinë. "And I don't want to have _that_ next to me," he added, nodding at the black-haired girl beside him.

"How many times must I explain it, Bambi?" Her Infernal Majesty sighed, ruffling his hair affectionately. "This was what your sister looked like when she was younger; she wasn't always a teenager, you know."

"But she was never a child neither," Bambi continued to undermine, and his mother rolled her eyes.

"She was a child long before you were hatched," Her Infernal Majesty stated in a tone that brooked no arguments, "And she's very confused right now; she still thinks she's human, the poor dear."

"She probably _is_ human then," Bambi sniffled in disdain, wrinkling his nose when his mother reached up to scrub his horn clean with her embroidered sleeve.

"Oh no Bambi, she's very immortal; Melusinë simply can't remember anything of her previous life, that's all. Did you know that she sees and hears whatever she _wants_ to see and hear? Why, whenever your father and I call her by her name, she thinks she hears us say 'Pearl'—"

"Pearl? Why Pearl?"

"Because that was her name, darling, when she was human. And did you know that she sees neither your father's nor my own true form?"

"No…"

"It's true, I swear it! Which is such a pity," Avie sighed, looking down at her long, aristocratic hands for a second before her eyes slipped closed in pleasure at the feel of her son stroking the blood-red feathers of her left wing. "She sees _you_ in your true form, though," she purred contentedly as Bambi's fingers buried themselves in the small, fluffy mound from whence her powerful wings sprouted. "Which is very lucky for you, you know, considering how you have your father's horns and my wing structure."

Bambi giggled, flushing happily at the compliment.

"Do be nice to her, won't you? And remember, she _will_ hear you addressing her as 'Pearl', for the time being; so if she says something like, 'Pearl is very sad', she's referring to herself, understand?"

"Why would she refer to herself in the third person?" Bambi quizzed, still gazing upon the girl with distrust.

"Because that's what she did as a human, and we think that it's a little quirk that will unabatedly continue. Now will you promise to look after her for me?"

"Only if she's my pet."

"Bambi!"

"She wanted me to be her pet," Bambi defended, widening his eyes in a way that he knew was endearing. "The first thing she said to me was, 'Pearl's little Squeak.' Mummy, she called me Squeak!"

"Aw, poor Bambi," Avie cooed with a peck on his forehead. "Don't worry, I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it. Night-night."

"No," Bambi firmly expressed, reaching out to grab her arm. "Me want a _story_."

"Bambi, I—"

"Story! Or Bambi will cry," he pouted.

"I thought that only Melusinë spoke in the third person," his mother teased. Bambi simply pouted and crossed his arms in a huff.

"See?" Her Infernal Majesty giggled. "She _is_ your sister."

"Story! Story! Pout." The mother and son were so engrossed in their conversation that they didn't even notice the way little girl's nose wrinkled; they certainly had no idea that she was thinking, _Oh God, how nauseating._ (The hypocrite.)

"Alright, but your father will certainly be irritated; he thinks I dote on you far too much as it is, you know."

Bambi giggled, and grinned victoriously; he had no qualms about pushing Pearl to the edge of the bed in order to make room for his mother, nuzzling up to her once she had settled in.

"Can you tell me the one about how you and Daddy met?" he requested sweetly.

"Again?"

"It's a fun—_interesting_ story," he justified, curling up in her arms.

"Where should I begin? Once upon a time…"

* * *

…paradise, heaven, whatever you wished to call it, was overrun with homosexuals. It could literally be dubbed a Gay Paradise, with all connotations of the word accounted for; for in the Early Days, homosexuality was the norm, rather than the exception. And presiding over these Cyprian, Bacchanalian delights was a swarthy, handsome, well, _god_ who would later become known as Satan. (Or the Devil, or Lucifer, or Hornie, depending on personal preference.) The Ruler, as we shall dub him, had been elected as Supreme Master of the Universe due to his ability (attributed to his Supreme Divinity) to rise above such earthy, carnal lusts. (The reality, however, was simply that he was the First Heterosexual Male, and given the complete lack of females in the early universe…)

In the early days of his reign, the Ruler did not allow such small, petty differences between him and his subjects to interfere with his rule, or even his overall contentment; he was perfectly happy to dedicate his life to government administration and smaller pleasures, such as destroying duck habitats, shooting monkeys, admiring his image in looking-glasses, and the like. But as time wore on, something, at first just a gnawing, niggling thought, took hold; something which slowly infected his body like a cancer, leaving him a melancholic, sullen wreck.

The disease was called Loneliness. ("_Aw,_" Bambi cooed on cue, whilst Pearl thought to herself, _He should get himself a Si-Si,_ clearly unwilling to accept that the Ruler had claimed for himself the First Si-Si.)

But still, the Ruler continued with his imperial duties, although close friends and admirers (of whom there were plenty) had offered to, ah, 'relieve him of his loneliness.' ("How?" Bambi queried; although he had heard this tale a thousand times before, not once had his mother imparted this niggling little detail; she deemed it as insignificant.) Alas, the Ruler was far too strai—_noble_ to accept such offers, much to his subjects' mass disappointment. And so he continued his lonely existence until, one not-so-special evening, as he laid in bed reflecting on his never-ending loneliness, something strange and entirely unexpected occurred:

It happened at that point where one dwelled on the brink of perfect sleep and perfect consciousness: the Ruler's eyes were closed, his lashes resting gently on his high cheekbones, when something soft and solid, of a decent weight, abruptly landed on his—on _him_.

The Ruler's body immediately stiffened, his jaw tightening as his hands gripped the exquisite sheets that covered him and acted as a barrier between him and this… foreign object. His first thought was that it was one of his swooning attendants, though how any of them could have entered his charmed chamber without his knowledge was beyond him; but then he realised that there was something… amiss with the creature. He supposed that it _felt_ like a man's body in that it had two arms and a pair of legs; and yet there was something wrong with the creature's, um, torso; and now that he was fully awake, he realised that a little lower, there was something of extreme significance missing. ("What was missing?" Bambi piped up. "Oh _shush_, you.")

Slowly, the Ruler opened his eyes, and gazed curiously up at the bewildered face that peered down at him.

The creature's face was, he found, an attractive one: it looked very much like a man's face, and yet, not so. He saw that the face had in it all of the characteristics he had found attractive in a select number of his subjects'; a smaller forehead, large, (and rather bewildered, in its case) eyes, a small, gently-rounded nose, and full lips tinted a pale red.

However, the creature, charming though it undoubtedly was, would not spend another minute in the Ruler's bed; faster than either could blink, the trespasser had found itself thrown on the floor, where it immediately curled up in pain, its shoulders shivering as thin, plaintive bleats spilled forth from its lips. The Ruler, now firmly on his feet, disabled the charm he had placed on his chambers for his own protection from his more, ah, _ardent_ followers with a resolved click of his fingers, and swiftly summoned a handful of slavering slaves.

"By the grace of—" cursed the first of the attendants, falling back as his eyes landed on the slender creature that laid whimpering on the floor, "What _is_ that thing?"

The Ruler knew not, and told his servant as much; he knew only that it was late, that he wanted to sleep, that he would have the creature taken down to a cell, and that he would investigate the matter of its sudden appearance as soon as he'd finalised the irrigation plans.

"I _think_ it's harmless," he added, eying the creature warily; it started at one of his attendants' touch, crawling away on weak, unsteady limbs; the creature was easily overpowered, its struggles futile and ineffectual as it stood precariously balanced on two shaky legs, snarling and whimpering as it fought for its freedom. Not once did he hear it utter a single word as it…

* * *

_And he's sleeping,_ Avéralia noted with a fond smile, gently disengaging her youngest child's small, grabby hands from her wings. It never ceased to amaze her, how easy it was for her young son to fall abruptly asleep; it was a nightly miracle that never failed to thrill her.

"Sweet dreams, my darlings," she whispered to both children, carefully reaching over Bambi to caress her daughter's sleeping face. She started when she felt the girl's muscles flex, felt the head turning towards her.

"Pearl?" she asked softly. It was quite a nice name, really; short, simple, sweet… "Are you awake now?"

She felt the girl nodding against her fingertips; hesitantly, she pressed, "Are you alright? I know we gave you quite a fright a little while ago."

Pearl nodded, turning in the bed so that she was sitting up and facing Her Infernal Majesty, her expression sad and wistful.

"And what happened next?" she asked softly. "After the Ruler finds the 'creature', that is…"

The mother smiled and, climbing carefully over Bambi, settled herself comfortably between both children, gently hugging both to her. "Well…" she whispered softly, so as not to disturb her son, "The Ruler passed the rest of the night quite uneventfully, and when he awoke…"

**TBC**

**AN:** The updates may be few and far between, but I honestly haven't given up! Oh, and sorry for any inconsistencies, spelling, typing, or grammatical errors; I haven't really had time to read over it…


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